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Friday, 18 January 2013

POLITICAL ECONOMY and the INDIVIDUAL

In an eloquent work entitled MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY, Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian, responds to the interwar crisis of the Western World confronting a political, economic and social crisis. Rooted in Judeo-Christian values and Western Liberalism, both archaic and victims of Western secularization, the arguments Niebuhr raises address how society can maintain harmony between the individual and institutions. The same question can be asked in the early 21st century when the capitalist political economy necessarily promotes capital concentration and structural socioeconomic inequality, depriving the current generation of young people of the prospects for upward social mobility that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

In my view, the West is currently experiencing a crisis not because of 'The Decline of the West', as Oswald Spengler argued after WWI when Europe destroyed itself and proved that the value system of the Enlightenment was finished, but owing to a crisis that is largely due to the systemic flaws in the capitalist political economy (under a neo-liberal model accompanied by aggressive globalization), simultaneously facing intense competition from China, India, Russia and Brazil, and subject to bloc trading groups - EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, etc.

There is the debate currently that society's salvation rests with the elimination of any form of statist model. I would agree that statism under Fascist or authoritarian states
as well as crony/mercantilist capitalism entail greater concentration of
capital and greater parasitic activity in the economy - capital not
geared toward productivity intended to create horizontal economic growth
vs. vertical growth within the same elites.

However, I would argue that not all statist systems are the same. Today we have China, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, India
and Brazil, all operating under some type of quasi-statist model and
doing fairly well. Granted these countries combined have the largest
population of poor on the planet, but they are at the very least moving
toward some horizontal economic growth - that is, there has been upward
socioeconomic mobility and the future looks relatively good for them.
Finally, I would argue that the US and EU countries have a sort of
quasi-statist regimes, something that is commonly labeled 'corporate
welfare'.

After all, would financial institutions exist today if it were not for
bailouts? Would large corporations make as healthy a profit today, if it
were not for the tax breaks, subsidies, and lucrative government
contracts, to say nothing of protection and support they enjoy through
large international organizations like the World Trade Organization, the
IMF, World Bank, OECD, etc.?

At the core of the
debate regarding free enterprise and its discontents is how to engender harmony in society without infringing on the rights of individuals, while protecting the more vulnerable and minority groups. There is an old
debate (as old as John Locke) about how society shields the individual
from the state's abusive power, versus the rights of the community. Do
the rights of the community transcend the rights of the individual? Do
we want a society where only the individual is protect no matter the
inadvertent cost (lack of benefit) to society?

Aristotle recognized that humans living in the city-state are
essentially 'political', which means that he too was influenced both by
Plato and by Pericles when he argued amid the war against Sparta that
the life of the city-state transcends the life of the individual who is
an integral part of society. This may be an extreme example, but it does
illustrate the point; even today governments ask their soldiers to kill
and risk dying to preserve the country.

From the ashes of this early 21st century crisis will emerge a new
synthesis and therein will rest its values. In short, values do not fall
from the sky to enlighten humanity, but emerge from society itself thus
molding the culture and individuals. Free will and its limitations
notwithstanding, and free will vs. determinism debate aside for now,
individuals do not fall from the sky and come to earth with their own
pre-molded value system, but are born, live and die within society and
its institutions. Whether in the form of crime, protests and demonstrations, revolts, social fabric disintegration, the elites that largely mold society's institutions inevitably pay a price for creating privileged hierarchical systems that cater to the few at the expense of the many.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."